It was the surprise of the political season, but maybe it shouldn't have been. While it took until now for him to issue a full endorsement, Rove has for months been using the Journal's op-ed page to signal his approval for the president. Just last week, in fact, he praised Obama's work ethic, writing, "He is working a lot harder than he thought he would."

In February, he lauded the president's motives in establishing a new agency, saying, "Mr. Obama set up a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010 to make sure people are treated fairly."

And last September, Rove explicitly accused his own political allies of doing voters a disservice by opposing Obama, writing, "[H]is Republican opposition puts party ahead of country."

If there's a reason those comments didn't cause more of a ripple when he made them, perhaps it's because he didn't actually say any of these things.

That is, he did write the words I attribute to him, but in a completely different context that changes the meaning to the point where, by removing that context, I've inverted his sentiments by 180 degrees.

Here's what Rove wrote, referring to a new film put out by the Obama campaign:

As for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation. Even President Bill Clinton says in the film "that’s the call I would have made."

And here, as Sargeant notes, is what Clinton is actually quoted saying in the film (emphasis mine).

"He took the harder and the more honorable path. When I saw what had happened, I thought to myself, 'I hope that’s the call I would have made.'"

See what he did there? See how, by taking out "I hope," he turned it from a big-up to a put-down? Clever, right?

It's so clever, in fact, that I suspect the Journal may want to issue a correction -- just, you know, to let readers in on the joke. I emailed the paper's editorial page editor, Paul Gigot, and its editorial features editor, Robert Pollock, to see if they have anything like that in mind. I'll let you know if I hear back from them. [Update: A Journal spokeswoman says the paper declines comment. Update 2: An "editor's note" has been added to the column. It reads: "An earlier version of this column included an incomplete quote from Bill Clinton in the last paragraph." The quote has been restored as well.]

Meantime, here are the fuller and thus more boring versions of the Karl Rove quotes above.